MAM
upGrad commits to ‘fast-forward your career’ in its latest campaign
Mumbai: Edtech firm upGrad has unveiled its new campaign titled ‘Fast Forward Your Career’ to promote the online courses from the education portal. Launched on Sunday with Vivo IPL 2021, the campaign will be heavily promoted across TV and digital, the brand said in a statement.
Conceptualised in partnership with The Womb, the four-film campaign has been directed by ad and feature filmmaker Vinil Mathew of Breathless Films. The commercials showcase a dramatised career journey on the upswing and aim to re-ignite viewers’ ambition of achieving meaningful professional growth.
The story further continues and is built subsequently through more films that the brand released on Sunday.
“At upGrad, our core belief has been to offer the working professional community best-in-class opportunities with regards to universities, faculty, and placements since both career growth & success depend on these tenets. The campaign aims to bring out this differentiated positioning of the brand in the higher edtech industry,” said upGrad India CEO Arjun Mohan. “While our past campaigns have helped us create significant awareness and establish upGrad as an online higher education leader, we now wish to push the envelope further and build preference for the brand, especially among a large set of ambitious working professionals who are looking for meaningful career growth, faster.”
“After landing a job, many working professionals find themselves stuck in the same job role without any growth and not much of a salary hike. This campaign seeks to shake these working professionals out of their career inertia and position upGrad as a viable option,” said The Womb co-founder Navin Talreja.
“The films have a relatable, slice-of-life quality with an interesting blend of tongue-in-cheek humour and the fuzzy warmth of friendship. It was an absolute joyride to collaborate with the super creative team at The Womb and a progressive client like upGrad,” said Mathew on directing the ad film.
The brand has further partnered with a host of content creators and influencers who will be joining its war cry of fast-forwarding careers in the competitive world of today. Furthermore, adding a more regional flavour to the campaign, the ad films will also run across media channels in several Indian languages including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali, and Kannada alongside English to connect with the regional audience, said the statement.
Brands
YES Bank hands the keys to SBI veteran Vinay Tonse as it bets on a new era
Former SBI managing director appointed as YES Bank’s new MD and CEO
MUMBAI: YES Bank is done rebuilding. Now it wants to grow. The private sector lender has appointed Vinay Muralidhar Tonse as managing director and chief executive officer-designate, with RBI approval secured and a start date of April 6, 2026 confirmed. The three-year term signals the bank’s intent to shift gears from crisis recovery to full-throttle expansion.
Tonse, 60, is no stranger to scale. Most recently managing director at State Bank of India, he oversaw a retail book of roughly $800bn in deposits and advances, one of the largest in the country. Before that, he ran SBI Mutual Fund from August 2020 to December 2022, a stint that saw assets under management surge from Rs 4.32 lakh crore to Rs 7.32 lakh crore across market cycles. Add stints in Singapore and four years leading SBI’s overseas operations in Osaka, and the incoming chief arrives with a genuinely global CV.
His academic grounding is equally solid: a commerce degree from St Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bengaluru, and a master’s in commerce from Bangalore University.
The appointment follows an extensive search and evaluation process by the bank’s Nomination and Remuneration Committee. NRC chairperson Nandita Gurjar said the committee unanimously backed Tonse, citing his leadership track record, governance credentials and ability to drive the bank’s next phase of transformation.
Non-executive chairman Rama Subramaniam Gandhi was unequivocal. “I am certain that Vinay Tonse, with his vast experience as a senior banker, will propel YES Bank to its next phase of growth,” Gandhi said, adding that the bank remains focused on strengthening its retail and corporate banking franchises and expanding its branch network.
Rajeev Kannan, non-executive director and senior executive at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, the bank’s largest shareholder, said Tonse’s experience across retail, corporate banking, global markets and asset management positioned him well to lead the lender. SMBC said it looks forward to working with Tonse and the board as YES Bank pursues its ambition of becoming a top-tier private sector lender anchored in strong governance and sustainable growth.
Tonse succeeds Prashant Kumar, who took the helm in March 2020 when YES Bank was in freefall following a severe financial crisis, and spent six years painstakingly stabilising the institution, rebuilding governance and restoring operational scale. Gandhi was generous: “The bank remains indebted to Prashant Kumar, who is responsible for much of what a strong financial powerhouse YES Bank is today.”
Tonse, for his part, struck a purposeful note. “Together with the board and my colleagues, I remain deeply committed to creating long-term value for all our stakeholders,” he said, pledging to build on Kumar’s foundation guided by his personal motto: Make A Difference.
Beyond the balance sheet, Tonse played cricket at college and club level and represented Karnataka in archery at the national championships — sports he credits with teaching him teamwork, situational leadership, discipline and focus. In quieter moments, he reaches for retro Kannada music, classic Hindi songs, and the crooning of Engelbert Humperdinck, Mukesh and Kishore Kumar.
YES Bank has its steady-handed rebuilder in Kumar to thank for survival. Now it has a scale-obsessed growth banker at the wheel. The next chapter starts April 6.
